Expulsion
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: AU. Anakin Skywalker was expelled for murdering the Tusken Raiders and for harassing and hurting Senator Padme Amidala. With his Force connection severed, Anakin tries to find himself in a war-torn galaxy.


I don't own Star Wars, I'm just having fun in the sandpit right now.

I've always wanted to write a story where Anakin gets expelled because of Padme and matures because of it and tries to get on with his life even when the galaxy is tearing itself to shreds, and I was inspired by "Hurtful Rejection" by roman 131 about how to write this out.

Enjoy, and please leave feedback.

* * *

Expulsion.

"Padme-!" Anakin began as Padme walked away in annoyance, but the beautiful senator of Naboo turned at the sound of his voice, her eyes narrowed in visible annoyance. It was a facade; Anakin could sense her anger through the Force, and it confused and worried him in equal measure.

"Anakin, enough! Just…stop!" Padme snapped at him, sound very much like an annoyed parent who was trying to get her child to behave.

"But.. I love you," Anakin said, repeating what he had said not a moment before Padme had tried walking away in anger.

Padme frowned as she was starting to get agitated. She was getting nowhere and Anakin was still here, holding onto his fantasies about them being together without seeing that it was just completely unrealistic. Seeing that she was getting nowhere with being frustrated and annoyed with Anakin, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes so she could mentally count to twenty-two, and then she reopened her eyes again to get her point across to him. "Anakin, this has to stop," she tried to say as diplomatically as she could, though she suspected he could sense her growing anger. "Grow up! This thing…you and me, it would never work out. I am a senator. You are a Jedi. It's not possible for us to be together. In any case, you are going to be off fighting in the war," she paused she let her heart clench at the very thought of the war, a war she had worked so very hard to prevent, "do you really think we can be together in such a mess?" She looked at him earnestly, hoping that she could see that what she was saying was making sense to her.

With the war on, the demand for the Jedi to take command, and direct the clone trooper legions throughout the galaxy in order to fight the Separatists, was strong.

She and Anakin could not be together.

They would be spending weeks, or even months, apart from each other while they were fighting in their own different arenas. Anakin would be off trying to stop the Separatists, while she would be looking for a diplomatic solution, though any solution with Nute Gunray was not something she particularly wanted. But the thought of spending only the Maker knew how long on her own while her 'husband' if they had taken that course at a different path filled her with horror. Padme had no intention of spending months and months without her loved one, and she didn't even want to try to risk it, but if she was hoping Anakin would be thinking this all out logically and see that she had a good point then she was in for a shock.

Anakin was still there looking at her determinedly. "We can try," he insisted, ignoring the twinges of pain in the organic part of his stump. He was still recovering from the trauma of losing his right arm to Count Dooku. Anakin had been a slave to a Hutt on Tatooine, and he had encountered some truly painful moments over the years he had been training to be a Jedi. But those experiences were nothing when compared to the agony of losing your arm in a lightsaber duel. He had felt nauseous, light headed and numb all over when he had gotten the wound, and he was still adjusting to the prosthetic limb; although it supplied his brain with sensory information much like his real flesh and blood limb, it was not the same.

But at the moment he was at a loss when it came to Padme.

Everything had changed.

He simply didn't understand what had changed. When they had been in the arena on Geonosis before Master Yoda had arrived with that first detachment of clone troopers which had sparked the war off, Padme had confessed that she loved him and they had shared a kiss. So why was she acting this way now as though nothing had happened? Why was she pushing him aside now?

Anakin just could not understand it.

"Padme," he began and decided to voice his thoughts, "what's happened? You said you loved me on Geonosis, and now you are acting as if you hadn't at all? What's changed? Surely you can't just say you haven't at least felt something for the last few days?"

Padme let out a sigh. "Anakin, I don't love you. Why can't you see for a change that this is something that exists only inside your mind? We can't be together and deep in your head, you know that. But no, you keep trying to pursue me, and I think you're pathetic. Naive. A pathetic naive little dreamer-."

"Stop saying those words!"

"No, you need to wake up and face reality," Padme snapped back at him. "There is no us. There never will be an us. It can't happen, and besides," she said, looking him up and down, "why would I want to be with a murderer?"

Padme knew that was low. Really low. It was bad enough she had just brought up the death of his mother, the mother he had failed to rescue because he had put it off for too long because the Jedi Council had denied him that chance to help rescue Shmi. But what made it deprived was how she had thrown in his face just now.

But if it helped him see that she was right….

Anakin took an unconscious step back in shock at what she had just said to him. He felt a wave of terrifying anger grip him, and a little voice in his head said: _"Hurt her, go on, hurt her - make her suffer for what she has just said!"_

_YES! _Anakin's mind yelled, furious at what Padme had just said, but a small voice, lower than a whisper compared to the other voices in his head, said,

_**No, don't hurt her!**_

That voice and the voice of his dark side clashed, and before Anakin even knew what he was doing himself, he threw out his hand and Padme was sent screaming as she went flying into a wall. Anakin dropped his hand in horror and rushed over to her.

"Padme," he said, dropping to his knees as he reached her as she struggled to get back up, groaning in pain as she lay on the ground. Anakin watched her anxiously, sensing her pain through the Force, but she also wondered to herself if she had any internal bleeding and he immediately clamped that thought down in his mind since it was too awful to contemplate, "Padme, I-I'm sorry….-"

Whatever else he was going to say was stopped when she glared at him with fury. The sight alone was enough to make him back off a little bit, flinching at the glare he was getting from her although she couldn't be blamed for being furious with him after what he had just done. He still couldn't believe it himself.

"Get out of here!" she snarled, groaning in genuine pain that he could feel through the Force. The sound made him flinch again. He was cursing Palpatine's advice to give into his emotions, listening to the old man bang on about how he shouldn't try to be a calm, composed Jedi because it wasn't in his nature.

Now he had probably pushed the woman he had loved for so long away because he couldn't control himself.

But he refused to go. He couldn't leave, not after what had just happened. "But-but I hurt you," he whimpered as he tried to reach out to her to check she hadn't broken any bones, but when she flinched away he knew he had pushed her too hard - literally and figuratively - and he felt his heart ache even more, "I-I just got angry."

"Like you did when you slaughtered that camp?" she snapped, glaring at him with tears in her eyes. "That's your answer to everything, isn't it, you thug? Get angry, and lash out!"

Aankin recoiled, his mind feverishly trying to think of away he could make up for this. The reminder of what he had done when he had gone out into the Jundland Wastes after his mother was like a lightsaber through his chest. The fact she had used it against him… it hurt, it hurt a lot. But Padme spoke over him. "Just GO!" she screamed, and he wondered how long it would be before her erstwhile bodyguard appeared, demanding to know what was going on in this room, or even one of the handmaidens. "Just get out of here, you…. you animalistic thug! I am going to report you to the Jedi Council, they will take care of you. I wasn't going to bother even if you were harassing and hounding me, before now, but now I will. You have only yourself to blame. NOW GET OUT!"

Anakin got up quickly, shaken by the anger in her voice. He ran out of the room and he didn't stop until he ran out into the fields close to the manor owned by the Naberrie family. He couldn't believe what he had just done. How could he have just…lashed out like that to Padme, his precious angel? He had lashed out in anger, deliberately harming an innocent woman. While he had always felt nothing but contempt for the Jedi Code, there were some rules that he did follow, and deliberately harming someone innocent went against his own personal moral code.

But now things were terrifyingly worse.

Not only had he, as Padme had pointed out, though he had a hard time admitting it even to himself, hounded and harassed Padme, his attack on her meant she would bring it up with the Jedi Council. With anyone else, Anakin might delude himself into thinking that perhaps they were bluffing, that they didn't have the guts to go that far. Padme didn't bluff. He knew that. She was going to go straight to the Jedi Council, and truthfully he could not say he honestly blamed her.

Anakin knew the Jedi Council would believe her over him, though he had no intention of lying to them.

During the night, Anakin had tried to think of something he could say to Padme, but when he woke up the next morning he found she had gone. Left without a word.

Finally conceding defeat Anakin went back to his star fighter and left Naboo, glancing out of the cockpit windows to take a look at the beauty of the planet. When he had first visited the planet when he was 9, he had been awed by the sheer greenery of the world and the abundance of water, something which practically didn't exist on Tatooine. His only thought was just to return to the Jedi Temple and get the whole mess over with.

As he flew his star fighter above Naboo's atmosphere towards where the hyperspace ring was waiting for him, Anakin made the calculations for the jump into hyperspace. He was already mentally counting down the seconds before he returned to the Council and found that his actions really did have consequences.

* * *

Strangely when he returned to Coruscant, he found himself immersed in the battle plans of the war and while he had not forgotten what he had done to Padme, he was soon immersed in the plans and had almost put the beautiful senator out of his mind. But still his master knew something was wrong, and so did the other Jedi Masters. Obi-Wan was not stupid any more than the rest of the Council were; they could sense something was wrong with the heightened emotions of worry and fear rolling off of Anakin in waves.

Obi-Wan was unable to find out what was bothering his apprentice when he was suddenly called to the Council chamber on important business, but them moment he had heard that Anakin's heart had dropped into the deepest recesses of his chest.

Some of them were certain it was to do with the anticipation of going on the frontline's of the war, others weren't so sure. A few were concerned that perhaps Anakin wasn't ready to be on the front, he had just recently suffered a truly nasty injury, and he needed the time also to get used to his new prosthetic arm. But Anakin's insistence he was ready to go out had won off, and so he was on the active roster to be sent out to lead a battalion of clones to fight off the Separatists.

But truthfully the worry and anticipation permeated the Jedi Temple as all the senior masters, knights, and apprentices were preparing for war. While Anakin was one of a small number in the Order who had been brought to the Jedi at a slightly older age than the norm, there were Jedi who had lived in the temple their whole lives, and many of them were terrified of what was coming. Many of them were like Anakin, close to the trials, and close to becoming Jedi Knights. But that did not mean they were looking forward to fighting in a war.

Anakin couldn't blame them; while he was excited at the thought of battle since growing up as a slave on Tatooine, where he had grown up craving excitement in order to get away from the difficult life of slavery on that barren sand heap. Fortunately he had not been the only one there, and while many of the apprentices who were definitely going followed the same gospel as some of the Council like Masters Mundi, Yoda, and Windu in being detached about the whole war, as in they were not going to be excited though that was no surprise, there was also a number who actually wanted to get involved in the fighting.

And they had all flocked to Anakin. He was the only Padawan who had been on Geonosis; all the other Jedi were either Masters or Knights. They were more experienced and they had been in more than their own fair share of battles. Anakin was slightly overwhelmed by the attention. Any other time he would have been delighted, especially since many of the other apprentices wanted to know what he had experienced, instead of following the lead of the Council.

Anakin had a good memory of what had happened during his early days in the temple, and they had been far from pleasant since the rumour the Chosen One had been found had spread, and the word he had not had the typical upbringing they would have expected had made his days a living hell.

In the end, Anakin just told them to be careful and to remember their training, that while it might have been exciting, losing an arm and being hit by Force Lightning was not fun.

Many of the apprentices were still reeling form the news that Count Dooku, one of the most highly regarded Jedi Masters of their current generation, had not just turned to the dark side but had also become a Sith Lord. Anakin couldn't blame them, though he also couldn't work out just how stupid the Jedi Council were. They had been shown signs of what had happened to the Count enough times and yet they had ignored them, saying it was impossible.

_And the Council call ME arrogant. At least I don't casually dismiss anything so important, and wouldn't especially if it leads to terrible consequences, _Anakin thought to himself.

Anakin was just speaking to another group of apprentices when he received a call from his comlink. After excusing himself from the other apprentices, he went to a corner to take the call.

"Yes?"

"_Anakin. Come up to the Council Chamber. Now," _It was Obi-Wan, and he did not sound happy.

Anakin resisted the urges to both find out what was wrong and to swallow. "Understood," he said, "I'll be there in a few minutes."

After he cut off the com signal, Anakin leaned against the wall nearest to him and took a moment to think. Obi-Wan hadn't sounded particularly happy, and on the gauge measuring from _**calm and collected **_to _**Very angry but trying to sound composed, **_Obi-Wan had exceeded that particular level. Not a good sign.

Anakin didn't need to see the future. He knew what was happening.

Padme was in the temple.

She was telling the Council what had happened.

Then he sighed and headed in the direction of the Council chamber as fast as he could go although a part of him wondered why he was bothering since it was definitely clear in Anakin's mind that Padme was in the Jedi Temple right this minute. It was very rare for visitors to arrive, but it only happened during moments of the gravest urgency. And after what he had done to Padme, Anakin knew the matter was grave although what he had done was the last thing the Jedi Council needed now they were at war.

As he headed towards the Council chamber, his connection to Obi-Wan was closed off, though Anakin could definitely feel the waves of disappointment and shock coming through clearly. His heart sank. Yes, while he had given his master grief and had driven him mad, Anakin really cared about Obi-Wan, and he didn't want these feelings coming from the man who had raised him.

Yes, at first there had been a lot of tension between the pair of them since neither had forgotten the fact Qui-Gon had practically forced the pair of them together. Anakin had known from the moment they had met that Obi-Wan, like many of the other Jedi, were…concerned about him and his clouded future, which did not help matters, whereas Qui-Gon had had faith in him from the moment they had laid eyes on one another. Where the other Jedi had seen him as a dangerous threat, Qui-Gon had treated him with kindness. Obi-Wan had likewise never really forgotten how Qui-Gon had treated him during those days, like when he had announced to the Council he would train Anakin, basically leaving Obi-Wan to fend for himself when he was being discarded in favour of somebody younger and more powerful.

It had caused a lot of tension between the pair because Anakin knew Obi-Wan did not him, but he trained him nonetheless because of an obligation to his own Master. It stopped both of them bonding together because they had been pushed onto each other by the wishes of a dying man, and there was nothing they could do about it.

Over the years they had gotten over it, especially when they had accepted the fact Qui-Gon had not gone out of his way to hurt Obi-Wan. He had just wanted the Council to accept Anakin as a member of the Jedi Order. But in doing so he had failed to take into account what Obi-Wan had been feeling at the time. It didn't help that when that Sith Assassin had murdered him, Qui-Gon failed to tell Obi-Wan how proud he was of his old apprentice, and it had most likely hurt.

It had taken Anakin and Obi-Wan a long time, a very long time before they were able to live with one another in a peaceful manner. When he had been younger, Anakin had done his best to be the best apprentice to the inexperienced Kenobi, and although occasionally he ha driven the man mad at times with his antics, Anakin did want the man to be proud of him, to see that his promise to Qui-Gon was worth it.

Now it looked like his good intentions had gone down the drain.

How?

Two things, his infatuation with Padme, and listening to Palpatine. Anakin shook his head, knowing that his thoughts on the beautiful senator were confused and jumbled in such a manner it would be virtually impossible for him to sort through them, but his thoughts about what Palpatine had advised him over the years, how he shouldn't try to just push aside his conflicts, but to embrace them, and to see that the Jedi did not trust him although he knew it hadn't been too difficult for him to get that impression since the Jedi had never hidden their feelings and their thoughts from him over the years.

As he walked closer to the Council chamber, Anakin reinforced his mental barriers. He had never been comfortable with the manner in which his first meeting with the Jedi High Council had gone, how they had effortlessly entered his mind and read his thoughts concerning his mother. As a result, he had gone out of his way to never have his mind open to the Council like an open book.

Anakin had just neared the door enough to send a thought to the Jedi Masters inside the chamber to let them know he was outside. He received a message to come straight through. As he opened the door Anakin's heart sank as he saw the ornately robed figure of Padme in the room. She was alone, there was no sign of the entourage the woman took with her, there were no handmaidens and no bodyguards. The senator was looking at him with a haughty and glacially cold expression on her face that may have indeed been hewn from a chunk of ice from Hoth in the middle of a blizzard for all the warmth that was on it.

His heart sank even deeper when he saw the expressions on the other Jedi Masters. Many of them had detached expressions on their faces that made them appear to be living statues sitting down, but he could feel even though the Force on Coruscant was quite clouded like a murky lake where the light failed to penetrate down into the depths, feelings of disappointment and outrage. Mace Windu's own expression was hard and set, and Anakin knew the Jedi Master was the one who was going to be speaking.

"Skywalker, we have just been listening to a very alarming story from Senator Amidala here," Windu began without preamble before Anakin could even study the other masters to see what was on their own minds. "She has told us that you harassed her, wanting to marry her."

Anakin said nothing, knowing there was nothing he could say or do. He knew he had just been condemned.

Windu's eyes narrowed. "Nothing smart to say, Skywalker?" he asked.

"No, Master Windu," Anakin replied before he decided to just get it over and done with even if he wanted to throw an insult into Windu's face; he had no idea what Padme had said, but he knew nothing he said would be believed. "The senator is telling the truth."

Out of the corner of his eyes, Anakin saw Master Gallia shake her head and gaze at him with cold disappointment whereas some of the other masters looked distressed, or were just relying on their Jedi training to keep their own opinions to themselves. Master Yoda sighed and looked down at the floor tiling. He didn't need to show his expression, Anakin knew he was displeased and disappointed. Anakin bit his lip for a moment when he felt the

But Windu was not finished. "She also told us how you attacked her."

Anakin had been waiting for this one, and he mentally winced again at the reminder of what he had done. "I lashed out," he confessed, "I didn't like what she was telling me, and I just lost it. I'm not proud of it."

"Think not, you should," Master Yoda chided, gazing at him with an expression that told Anakin the elderly Master was more than disappointed.

"What possessed you to attack her like that?" Anakin flinched slightly when he heard the sound of the sagely and cultured voice of his master, and the teenager needed a moment to decide on what he needed to say. In the end, he decided to just tell the truth.

"During my meetings with Chancellor Palpatine, he kept telling me that I was different from the rest of the Jedi Order," Anakin said all at once so then no one would interrupt him; this was difficult to explain as it was, the notion of the Chancellor being involved in this mess was hard to take.

"Chancellor Palpatine said that?" Padme spoke for the first time, and Anakin turned automatically to look her in the face. He could see the disbelief on her face, though he guessed that she found it hard to believe that Palpatine would involve himself with a young Jedi Padawan, though there was something else there that said she wouldn't put it past him.

Anakin nodded, "Yes."

He turned back to the rest of the Council. "He also said that because I wasn't like the Jedi, and wasn't good at holding my emotions back like everyone else, I shouldn't even try; I don't know what the point of the meetings was, but looking back I can see that I took that advice too far," Anakin finished, looking solemnly around the Council.

The Jedi Council members were openly surprised by the news. The fact they weren't instantly condemning him as a liar because of the unexpected nature of the story of how he had attacked Senator Amidala was telling, though whether or not they had noticed Padme's own reaction to this news, Anakin wouldn't be surprised if they disbelieved the whole thing. The thought they wouldn't believe him even if he was telling the truth didn't really do anything to surprise Anakin.

"Nevertheless, excuse what you have done, this news does not," Master Yoda's voice broke out which brought a swift end to any Jedi Master who was planning on interrogating Anakin for further details; the young Jedi was pleased by that, especially since he had plans of his own…

"Yes," Master Mundi agreed with the Grand Master, "you committed a grave violation of the Jedi Code, Anakin. You know we do not attack the unarmed."

Anakin was very still and quiet, knowing this was going to get worse.

"Nor do we kill an entire village of Tusken Raiders in cold blood," Master Fisto spoke up, deciding to have his say; Anakin turned his head, unsurprised to hear the otherwise laid-back Jedi Master who was always good for a laugh look both grave, disturbed, and disappointed all in one go. Next to him, looking upset was Master Shaak-Ti; seeing her expression of pain and sadness on her face made Anakin feel sick. Out of all the Council, Shaak-Ti had always been there for him. Somehow, and he truly did not understand why, the Togrutan Jedi Master was able to look past the distrust the other Jedi Masters on the Council had towards him, but now it looked like they were right to be distrustful in her mind.

Anakin had to swallow the bile when he took in her reaction, feeling even more disgusted with himself for pushing the kind and loving Jedi Master away from him even if it was unintentional.

"Told you, we did, you could not see her," Yoda chided.

Suddenly Anakin lost it, but he restrained his urge to really lash out. He was furious with the little toad and his self-righteous attitude. He had told the Jedi Council about what was going on but they didn't listen to him. Suddenly he no longer cared what they thought about him. He was not going to back down without a fight yet.

"Those nightmares were driving me insane, and no amount of meditation would work," Anakin retorted, not holding back; he knew he shouldn't be making it worse, but he knew the Code even if he was disdainful of it. He knew he had been condemned already. It was bad enough the Council had been told what had happened on Naboo, but what they had just learned about Tatooine was the final nail. In comparison, speaking back to a Jedi Master, particularly the Grand Master, in a bad manner paled in comparison, but over the link he shared with Obi-Wan, he could tell that his master was trying to get him to stop speaking. Didn't his master realise nothing he said would change their minds? Padme had given some of them what they'd wanted for years on a platter.

"I had to go, and when I saw the skin hanging from the bones where she had been whipped and when she died in my arms, I felt a terrible rage grip me," Anakin went on, "but when it was over, it was like waking up from a terrible nightmare. I couldn't believe what I had done….'

"You murdered children, Skywalker," Windu interrupted coldly, not in the least bit moved by what he had just listened to. The Master of the Order sighed and gazed at Anakin with real emotion in his own dark gaze. "I can't say how disappointed we are in you Skywalker, we had put our faith in you, that you were the Chosen One of the Force. Now we find that we were wrong. We have already made our decision," Windu went quiet for a moment so he could catch a breath but to also marshal his thoughts.

When he spoke, he said the one thing Anakin had been expecting ever since he had seen Padme standing in the centre of the room. "We have decided to expel you from the Jedi Order," he said, "you knew we would do this. But your crimes," Anakin's breath halted at the word, though he did not know why, "have made this difficult for us. Your power level is far above our own, and your future has always concerned us. Now you have given us proof of that, so now we must decide what to do with you, and we must also decide whether or not to sever your connection to the Force."

Anakin took an unconscious step back when he heard the punishment though he was surprised that they were planning on taking it that far, and he felt rather than saw Padme start in surprise herself, but he paid her no mind.

The senior Jedi Master waved him and Padme away. "Please wait outside for our decision," Windu instructed, though before the shaken duo lefty the chamber, Anakin's lightsaber flew off from his belt and into the hands of Mace Windu. Anakin licked his lips shakily again, and he walked out of the room with Padm-no, Senator Amidala. That was all she was, a high and mighty senator, a politician, a slave to the Senate.

The realisation hurt, but as Anakin walked over to one of the bay windows he went over and stood against it and kept his back to Padme so he couldn't see the face of the woman. As he stared out over the view, Anakin wondered what he was going to do next. There was no doubt in his head they were going to expel him, he had felt some of the Masters in that room feel delighted at the chance to finally get rid of him. Anakin rested his forehead gently on the glass and sighed gently, watching as the condensation appeared.

He had known from the moment he entered the Council chamber he would be lucky to remain a Padawan. Attacking the Senator was one thing, killing those Tuskens in a moment of insane madness was another. Both were against the Jedi Code. But he was surprised that the Council were preparing to go so far as to expel him and also to sever his connection to the Force. It wasn't an easy procedure, and from what Anakin had learnt over the years it was one of the most painful and severest punishments of the Order. But he wondered if he could make a request even if he knew he wouldn't be in any position to make them, but it was possible for him to leave Coruscant and start a new life somewhere else, and with the Council being too occupied with the war they wouldn't really care what he got up too.

Anakin shuddered at the thought of losing his connection to the Force. He'd had it his entire life, and even if he hadn't known what it was as a child when he had been raised by his mother on Tatooine, he had always been a great judge of character. He had always been able to sense his way around things, and he had always lied on intuition and guidance from the Force during those pod races. The idea of losing it all because of the woman behind him…. it made him shudder with horror, but he guessed that the Council were getting some telling relief from it.

The Jedi Council had never, in his mind, ever hidden their distrust for him and when he had been there he had known that the majority of the Council would back the vote to have his Force connection severed.

Padme's voice broke through his thoughts. "Anakin," she began hesitantly, but he ignored her, he was more interested in what he was going to do with himself after he left Coruscant; he had nothing here, and despite the time he had been on the planet, his knowledge of the mechanised city complex with covered the entire planet in a blanket of metal and glass towers was limited. Oh, he knew his way around, but he didn't want to be here.

"Anakin!"

With a groan Anakin turned around and faced Padme - no, Senator Amidala, that was all she was to him now. Just Senator Amidala. "What do you want?"

Padme was taken aback visibly by the coldness of his question. "I didn't know they would take it this far, I'm sorry," she said.

Anakin couldn't believe what he was hearing. _You? Sorry? _he thought to himself, but he turned around and looks back out to look at the city. Dotting the air in their traffic lanes were hundreds of speeders, resembling swarms of flying insects in tightly packed formations.

"Anakin, I'm talking to you-," Padme tried to say, but Anakin tuned her out; he didn't want to speak to her, or even to look at her. While he was angry with her, what happened on Naboo had highlighted in his mind the flaws in Palpatine's 'advice,' and in any case, he genuinely did not want to make anything worse than they were now, and besides that, he knew in that room his future was going to be decided.

"I don't want to speak to you," he snapped back, not looking at her face to gauge her reaction, "I pushed you too far, you are pushing me. I understand that but do me the courtesy of just….shutting your mouth. There is nothing you have to say I particularly want to hear. Now leave me alone!"

The last thing he wanted was for the Jedi Masters to come out here only to find him and this woman from shouting at each other. He closed his eyes and began to meditate lightly, and he sensed rather than heard Padme's sigh of exasperation though there was something else there that surprised him. Sadness.

He didn't care.

* * *

Anakin was slightly surprised it took the Jedi Council a while to come to their decision. He would have expected they would have reached their final decision a while ago within seconds after he and Padme had left the Council chamber. But no, he and the senator were standing outside for half an hour. From time to time, Anakin had tried to get an impression from Obi-Wan about what was taking so long. Unsurprisingly, his master was closed off.

Finally, the door opened, revealing the face of Mace Windu. The Jedi Master's expression was, as usual, cool and expressionless.

"We're ready for you," the Jedi Master said, and he led them back inside.

As he stepped in, Anakin knew they had reached their decision. When he and Padme were once more standing directly before Windu and Yoda, he knew he was not going to like what he was about to hear and he turned to face Windu, knowing the Jedi Master was going to be the one passing the judgement.

"You have given us a hard time today, Skywalker," the Korun Master began sternly, "we are in the middle of a war. It is bad enough one of our most revered and most wisest masters turned to the dark side and became a Sith Lord himself, and the last thing we needed was to expel someone who was powerful and promising. We have put a lot of our trust and faith in the prophecy where you would bring balance to the Force, but it is clear you are not the Chosen One. That is why you have been a member of the Order for this long, had you not been believed to be the Chosen One, you would have been expelled a long time ago. You are a corrupting influence, Skywalker, and you are simply not Jedi material."

Anakin barely suppressed a sigh. He had had the prophecy shoved down his throat from the moment he had met the Jedi. It wasn't his fault his mother had gotten pregnant without a father to do the job. It was not his fault he had a hard time fitting in. The Jedi Council had never made it secret they were worried about him and his future. Oh, occasionally not all of the Council were this bad, but Anakin had gradually learnt to put everything aside and just try to live his life in the Order.

In any case, Anakin had often studied the prophecy in question.

It had not said anything about this mythical figure being a Jedi. It was the arrogance of the Order that made them think the Chosen One had to be a Jedi, simply because it was the Jedi who were at war with the Sith, but there were dozens of Force-sensitive groups out there who opposed the Sith and everything they stood for.

There were even, surprisingly enough, dark side groups who hated the Sith, but the Council did not care about that.

Hearing from Windu that he was not Jedi material didn't surprise him; the bald bastard had often voiced that during his apprentice-ship whenever he had done something wrong, and he had been lectured more than once and put down by the Jedi Master over things that he had done on his own.

"But he must be the Chosen One," Obi-Wan piped up to argue; Anakin wondered what his Master had been doing in this room all this time, and how things had gone for him, though hearing him was painful, listening to that pained voice, "everything about his birth circumstances, his medichorian count…."

"Master Kenobi," Mace interrupted sternly, "our decision is final. Now, you must cut him loose."

But Obi-Wan was not going to give up without a fight. "He is the Chosen One, we can't just turn him away-."

"We will find another," Windu replied coldly and glared over at the other Jedi Master. "Now break the bond."

Anakin noticed Padme looking at him in bemusement, not understanding what was going on, but Anakin did. He let out a gasp when he heard his master's voice in his head _I'm sorry, Anakin, _and then nothing. The bond had been cut.

Visibly shuddering, Anakin closed his eyes and instinctively sought out the connection between himself and Obi-Wan, only to find nothing. He kept his eyes closed tight but when he opened them again, he found the arrogant face of Mace Windu staring back at him coldly, unconcerned about what he had just gone through.

"Senator Amidala," Master Yoda spoke up, his voice quiet and his tone low but Anakin could tell the elderly Grand Master was deeply upset by the events going on, "need you here any longer, we do not. Escort you out of the Temple, a Padawan will."

But Padme refused to go. "You won't hurt him, will you? I wanted him to be reprimanded, not have the Force torn away from him," she argued, looking frightened suddenly that her decision to report what Anakin had done to her and on Tatooine would cause irreparable harm.

She looked at Anakin, and she could see he did not look well. Padme, like so many others, did not know or understand the Force, so she had no idea what had just happened, but it was clear it had taken a toll on Anakin.

Mace's voice was cold. "Our methods for punishment are not your concern, Senator. Now please leave," he said.

Anakin snorted under his breath. He had often noticed while the Jedi Council bent down and sucked the cocks of the Senate, or they suckled them from the teats, they were more than happy to tell their Knights and apprentices never to trust politicians, but this was the first time their attitude had actually been revealed to a member of the Senate.

Padme looked around the room briefly, looking into the faces of the other masters but she found no-one willing to support her. Out of the corner of his eye, Anakin watched as she became more and more desperate to have an ally; but she found none. One or two of the Jedi Masters were probably more sympathetic towards her because of her ignorance of Jedi punishments, but they were not going to help. Anakin briefly wondered what she had seen in Obi-Wan, but whatever it was it couldn't have been good because the woman left. Anakin ignored her and ripped his arm away when she touched it gently, making it clear he didn't want her around anymore. Again out of the corner of his eye, Anakin watched her fear-stricken face. He could feel through the Force she was frightened and worried and scared for him, but her worry was too little, too late in Anakin's mind.

"Senator," Mace Windu's voice had a clear sternness, indicating the Jedi Master had begun to lose patience with Padme, "please leave."

Padme bowed her head and left. "I'm sorry, Ani," she whispered, and left the Council chamber, but Anakin was unmoved, though he was annoyed she had used the childhood nickname Shmi had gifted him. He was momentarily angry with her hypocrisy, but he pushed it aside when she walked away with her head bowed.

When she was gone, Anakin looked at the two leading members of the Order. "Masters, before you begin severing my connection to the Force, I'd like to make a request please."

Mace looked like he was prepared to refuse, but fortunately the same could not be said of Yoda, who looked at him intrigued. "A request, you may make," he said generously.

"Thank you, Masters, " Anakin replied politely. "I would like permission to have a ship so I can leave Coruscant. I can start again somewhere different."

"Where would you go?"

"I don't know," Anakin answered, though he knew already he was not going to head to Naboo, but his mind was racing because there were dozens of other worlds in the Republic he could travel too. "But I would like to make a new start somewhere else, and already there are plans to place sanctions on commercial space liner companies."

Yoda tilted his head in thought. "Very well, agree with you, the Council does," he announced, "A ship you will have."

"Thank you, Master Yoda," Anakin said respectfully, thankful that Yoda was in a generous mood.

Master Yoda glanced at Mace Windu. "Commence the procedure, we will now."

The blood in Anakin's body chilled at the words. Suddenly he knew why it had taken so long for the Council to reach their decision on what to do with him, and why Obi-Wan had been quiet through their bond before it had been severed. They had been meditating in preparation to sever his connection with the Force. He became angry; they had been so desperate to get rid of him they had immediately made preparations to do the deed, and sever his Force Connection.

Anakin saw the unimpressed expressions on Windu and Yoda's faces, and he felt the same annoyance from the rest of the Jedi Masters. They knew he was angry, but he didn't care. What did it matter, he was not going to be a threat to them anymore? They were going to take something that was integral to his identity away and they had already made preparations, how did they think he was going to react?

Anakin stayed very very still, but soon he was screaming in agony.

* * *

_Three days later. _

Anakin was walking through the familiar corridors to the Chancellor's office. It had been three days since the Jedi Council had punished him by severing his connection with the Force, and for the last three days, he had been trying to adjust to the feeling of….emptiness. It was so odd, he felt like a blind man who had just lost his sight and his hearing. It was a very eerie feeling, and Anakin did not like it.

He was going to leave today. He had to get away from the Jedi Temple, from Coruscant. He had to get away quickly before he went mad. The rest of the Temple knew he had been expelled, and they had felt his scream through the Force when the Council had carried out his punishment.

The Jedi in the Temple had always treated him as a pariah in the past, but now they knew what he had done they were treating him in an even worse manner.

But he had one last task to perform and then he would leave. The ship the Jedi had given him was ready for launch, and soon he would be heading out to Corellia. He had plans to see if he could join the Corellian Engineering Corporation so he could get a position working on something he had always enjoyed, mechanics and engineering, though how he'd be able to do so without the Force he had no idea right now.

But Anakin was hopeful; he knew the CEC was always on the look out for new minds to help them construct new starships, so it gave Anakin some degree of hope for his future. Getting a job at the CEC would take his mind off of the Clone War, the Jedi, Padme, and hopefully by the end of today everything else.

But at the moment he was hopeful that he would get something, and even if he couldn't get hold of a position it wasn't the end. Anakin had managed to bounce back countless times in the past so this shouldn't be too difficult for him, but first, he had something to do.

It didn't take Anakin long to get an appointment with the Chancellor; Palpatine had always been infamous for his ability to say no to people who were lobbying for a new cause or for a new policy they wanted to get pushed into the Senate, but he had always told Anakin he was welcome anytime. Anakin was grateful for that. He needed to get some answers from the man who had been his friend and mentor since he had been a child. It already hurt him to know that Palpatine had given him unsound advice.

Anakin found Palpatine hard at work at his desk, but the moment the Chancellor saw him, he stood up at once and greeted Anakin with his usual warm smile, though Anakin caught sight of something else there in his expression.

"Anakin, my dear boy," he said with a warm expression though there was a hint of confusion there, "How are you? I thought you would have gone on the frontline by now."

Anakin looked down briefly for a moment. This wasn't going to be as easy as he had expected. Despite his best attempts to see that Palpatine had supplied him with terrible advice which had caused a lot of grief for him, the warm expression on the older man's grandfatherly visage got to him.

"So did I, Chancellor," Anakin replied, looking up. "I've been expelled from the Jedi Order."

Palpatine's expression changed to one of disbelief. "What?" he said in disbelief, looking at Anakin as if he had just misheard him. "Anakin, something must be wrong with my hearing," he went on, his expression becoming confused and worried at the same time, "I believe you said you had been expelled from the Jedi?"

Anakin nodded. "You didn't misunderstand me," he replied with a sigh.

For the next half, an hour Anakin described what had taken place on Tatooine with the Tusken Raiders, how he had been hit with a wave of rage after his mother had died in his arms despite going out of his way to try to save her life only to arrive too late. He told Palpatine the story of what had happened on Naboo, how Padme had rejected him despite his best efforts. He left nothing out, he told the old politician about how he had used the Force on her in a surge of rage. Palpatine's expression shifted during the story as Anakin spoke on, and he seemed to be looking into Anakin's soul.

Finally, Anakin explained what had happened during the meeting he'd had with the Jedi Council, and how they had severed his Force connection. As Anakin spoke, he decided not to call the Chancellor out about his 'advice,' and just decided to get the story out. When he was speaking about what the Council had done, he noticed a flash of anger surge across Palpatine's face for a moment which momentarily shocked him, but a second later it seemed to have vanished as though it had never been there.

"The Council…. severed your Force connection?" Palpatine whispered.

Anakin nodded, not voicing the way it had felt at the time. He still remembered the pain he had gone through, and he didn't want to even voice how it felt, especially since he doubted he could even describe it.

"Yes," he replied, "the Council decreed I was too dangerous. But they excused it all by saying that since Count Dooku, they could not risk anymore Jedi falling to the dark side, so they came up with the severing punishment to ensure they are not a threat."

"I see," Palpatine said, at last, looking at Anakin with clear, sorrowful eyes, but there was something else there the young man did not like. "What will you do now?"

"I don't know yet," Anakin admitted; while he wanted to head out to Corellia to join the CEC there was still plenty of time for him to do that. "I am going to have to go out there and find a position somewhere in the galaxy. There are dozens of opportunities out there, so I won't be completely left without something to do with myself."

"I wish you well," Palpatine said, still in shock over what the Jedi Council had done, but there was something else there in his expression which made it look alien to Anakin.

"Thank you. Maybe along the way, I'll stop slavery out there in the Rim territories," Anakin went on, voicing a long held out hope he'd had since he had been a child.

"Indeed," Palpatine said, but his tone was sour and he was suddenly looking at Anakin as though the young man had just let him down badly, "That is a truly noble pursuit for you, Anakin. I sincerely wish you luck. I hope it goes well for you, Anakin."

"Thank you, Your Excellency," Anakin replied, suddenly surprised by the old man's sudden coolness.

Palpatine turned away for a moment, clearly in thought, but then he looked back at Anakin. The young man waited, wondering what the Chancellor was going to say to him next. "My fondest farewell, Anakin. Good luck."

Anakin was surprised the old man was just dismissing him without giving him some sound advice, but the old man just turned and walked slowly to his desk, clearly dismissing him.

_I guess I can't trust you, after all, _Anakin thought to himself, and he turned and walked out of the room. His time on Coruscant was over now.

* * *

Palpatine was furious. He was furious with Senator Amidala for causing this mess, he was furious with the Jedi Council for going as far as they had; while he could certainly see the logic behind their decree to sever the Force from powerful Jedi who crossed the line now, especially during the current war he and his apprentice had caused, he was furious all the hard work he had poured into Anakin Skywalker had gone up in a puff of smoke.

But most of all he was furious with Anakin for going as far as he had. Granted, most of it was an oversight on Palpatine's part. He had been trying to strengthen the darkness in Anakin for a long time, pushing him along, even going as far as to force Anakin to go to Tatooine in order to rescue his mother, only to arrive there too late.

That stage of his master plan to convert Anakin and push him further on his path to darkness had been successful. It had been so easy for him to monitor Shmi Skywalker's life through the Force while she was beaten and tortured by those animals living on that desert planet after the bounty hunter he had hired to have her taken to the Jundland wastes had done his job, though he was killed shortly afterwards in order to cover his tracks, and keep her alive while feeding more and more pain through the Force itself to ensure Anakin went to Tatooine; Palpatine knew the boy would disobey the Council, in fact, he had guaranteed it when he had manipulated the Jedi into ensuring Anakin was assigned to protect Senator Amidala in the first place, and he had fed the boy terrible visions along the way to tempt him into going while compelling the incorruptible senator to make Anakin go to the planet.

When he had been there, Palpatine had been locked in meditation while he had monitored the whole situation. Shmi Skywalker's death had been easy to arrange. He had been keeping her alive using the Force for a while, but when her son arrived, he had done two things at the same time; the first was to remove his connection to Shmi and stop her heart. The second was to cloud Anakin's mind with rage; it wasn't difficult, the boy had loved his mother, and although the emotion alone made the Sith Master physically and mentally ill, it had served its purpose.

Anakin had instantly attacked the Tusken raiders, slaughtering each and every one of them without any mercy while Palpatine had observed the atrocity through the Force. He had been aware of the deceased Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn trying to stop the enraged Padawan to stop, but Anakin didn't as he had carried out his revenge with homicidal glee.

Yes, the boy had been horrified with what he had done by the end, but the act had been made. Anakin was practically now on the path to darkness. What was more, while he had been horrified, a part of Anakin had felt delighted with what he had been done, the power he'd had at his fingertips…. Palpatine had realised there and then with a few more manipulations, the boy would be well on his way to becoming a powerful Sith Lord.

Granted, Sidious didn't entirely need Anakin. It would be a grave mistake for him to rely on just one individual. While Dooku was formidable and capable of carrying on with his plans to further the Grand plan of the Sith, Sidious wanted Anakin Skywalker. He had the raw, untamed power each and every master, especially ones of a darker persuasion, yearned for. Anakin would have been the perfect apprentice. What was even better was the fact the boy had a natural rage which made it easy for Palpatine to influence. He had been feeding the boy everything he had wanted to hear which had contradicted the Jedi's pathetic and pedantic code. It had been boiling and bubbling beneath the surface for years, and now it was gone.

Palpatine was furious. He had been so close, so close to seeing that rage festering until it had become a powerful hatred which would have made Anakin's conversion into a Sith perfect. With his unmatched power and potential, Anakin would have been the right one to destroy the Jedi. True, his attachment to Senator Amidala was an annoyance, but it would have served its purpose in the long run.

Now it was all gone.

The boy's connection to the Force was gone.

At first, he had not wanted to believe it. But as he had reached out with his senses he had seen to his horror that the Force connection which separated Anakin from even the most powerful of Jedi Masters, Yoda and Windu included, had been severed permanently. There was nothing that he could do, even with his incredible connection with the dark side.

The boy was now all but useless to him. Without his Force powers, Anakin would never be anything more than a servant on the same level as Nute Gunray, but he would never be on the same level as a Sith Lord. Oh, there was still anger in him; unlike the Jedi Council, Palpatine had a good idea what had created that anger, but now it had no release.

With a growl while he was trying really hard to hold back the urge to release his considerable rage at losing his perhaps most powerful servant, though he could not hold back the waves of rage he was feeling from crushing a few ornamental vases and the metal of his desk buckled slightly under it while the facade of Palpatine was crumbling and Darth Sidious was desperate to escape.

A decade of work had just been destroyed, but what made it worse for Palpatine was he had not foreseen it. He had envisioned many things, but the problem with the Force was it didn't move in a straight line. There were bound to be various paths that each action began, and you had to take things from there, but some things remained constant.

But not anymore. He had just lost potentially the most powerful Sith Lord ever. As he looked out over the city, Palpatine closed his eyes and sighed wearily. He would need to find a new apprentice, something he was not looking forwards to because few had been powerful enough to become the Sith apprentice he needed.

* * *

_Nearly three years later. _

Anakin leaned in and took a look at the readings on the console while he took the control yokes. The sub-light drive was working perfectly, it seemed as though the modifications he had suggested to the R&D team had really paid off, though it hadn't been hard for him to make the suggestions to install a few components and make a few modifications to the drive so then the engine would deliver more thrust for a third of the energy being channelled into the drive.

He glanced over at his co-pilot, Shanna.

"I can certainly feel the difference," he commented while he turned his head back around. The testing site of the Corellian Engineering Corporation was essentially a chunk of that worlds' solar system really close to the Five Brothers but a little bit further out, quite close to an asteroid belt where a permanent outpost monitored test flights by CEC test ships which tested new innovations in subs-light drive technology or even new hyperspace drives.

"Me too," Shanna grinned while she turned her face briefly at him before she looked back. "I think your modifications will certainly bet popular through the galaxy. Many people hate how much fuel is used up and wasted by sub-light drives in the first burn."

"I know, I'm one of them," Anakin pointed out before he took a moment to look around, his soul bogged down with regret. Shanna noticed his expression and she looked at him in concern before she tapped off the com system for a moment. She knew it wasn't great practice in the CEC, but she knew their ship was monitored at the testing outpost which wasn't far away and on Corellia itself.

"I wish I had come here instead of being on Coruscant," Anakin replied, thinking back to those years being stuck in the Jedi Temple, learning the ways of the Force, only for them to be snatched away from him when he had lost his temper with Padme. "I feel like everything is coming together now."

Shanna looked at him with a sad expression on her face. It was very rare for Anakin to open up about his past on Coruscant.

"I love being a test pilot. I feel like I belong here; I never had that much before," Anakin went on as he checked the controls for a moment before he looked at the test schedule. "Okay," he went on once he decided to return to business, "what's next?"

Shanna checked the list. "Hmm," she murmured thoughtfully as her eyes scanned the list. "The hyperdrive test. They want us to jump beyond the outer markers of the system." She began setting the navigation computer to begin plotting the course. Anakin watched her while he professionally checked the systems.

As he did he took a moment to think.

He had been a test pilot of the Corellian Engineering Corporation for nearly three years, and while the Clone wars hadn't really touched several parts of the core worlds of the galaxy yet, Corellia had been touched a few times though the Separatists had been fought off either by involvement from the Clones and their Jedi generals or commanders or from the Corellians who hadn't taken too kindly to the attackers. The Separatists may have been a tiny federation of disgruntled groups and races who had come to dislike the way the Republic worked and they may have had powerful ships, but as Anakin had proven virtually a lifetime ago when he had been a child with little experience of piloting anything more than a pod racer made from crude, substandard parts and no battle experience to go with it, having to defeat an army of cheap, badly programmed battle-droids was far from difficult. While the Separatists had some pretty powerful weapons at their beck and call, Anakin had known for a long time it would be pathetically easy to bring them down, and he had been proven right multiple times.

Thinking about the war made Anakin think about everything. He knew the Jedi were doing everything they could to stop the Separatists, but they were still dying like regular people as they were shot down. It put things into perspective; the Jedi were often seen as immortal peacekeepers, depending on your point of view, and yet they were mortal as everyone else. Thinking about the Jedi made him think about the fact he was no longer able to perceive the Force. What the Council had done was the equivalent of hacking off a limb. The loss of the Force had changed Anakin a great deal. He had felt as though he had lost a vast amount of himself, but he also felt a new maturity about himself because he now had to rely on himself instead of the Force.

Padme had tried to contact him a few times, leaving desperate messages saying that she was sorry, that she did love him and in hindsight, they could have been together without causing any unpleasantness. Anakin had deleted each message and before he had altered his communication protocols so the bitch wouldn't contact him, he had sent a pointed message back, saying they were through.

He had also been abandoned by Obi-Wan. His former Jedi Master had never once replied to any of his messages, and eventually, Anakin had become okay with that when he had seen on the Holonet how Obi-Wan and his new Padawan, a girl called Ahsoka Tano, had become the prime-time heroes of the Order. In the end, Anakin had decided that he would cut ties there as well and just get on with his life with the Corellian Engineering Corporation. It had taken Anakin over a couple of weeks to be given a job. Unlike with many other organisations, the CEC preferred hiring people based on what they saw him do, rather than bothering about qualifications which didn't help in the long run. It hadn't taken long for Anakin to prove to them that he was worth their time, his piloting experience and his knowledge of mechanics, and his ability to think and innovate had made him be snapped up along with a dozen others.

Once that was done, Anakin had very quickly risen through the ranks and he had become a test pilot for the organisation. He had also become a valued member of the team, and for the first time in his life, Anakin was truly happy, even more so than when he had been trained as a Jedi. He had a great job doing what he really loved doing, and the galaxy was always in the need for new pilots and mechanics. With CEC, Anakin could do both.

The CEC research facility was one of the largest complexes on Corellia. Dedicated to space research and engineering development, and heavily financed by the Space Ministry of the planet, which was responsible for the charting and re-charting of the different hyperspace routes that were looped through the galaxy, the facility never spared any expense in the development of new starships. Like their trademark spacecraft, the CEC research centre was fairly modular in design and innovation. The place was designed to be built on and built up as more and more research divisions were added on when someone had a new idea to hand out.

The testing ships were kept a little further away from the main blocs, and Anakin and Shanna gently guided their test vessel there.

As Anakin parked the ship in the testing bay, he and Shanna left the testing room to write up their reports. When they were finished they split up, and Anakin headed over to his own hanger. It was considered almost sacrilegious for pilots to not possess their own hanger, and they were free to use them however they wanted.

Anakin knew that one pilot had a collection of some of the oldest Corelllian designed starships and spent his time working on them, and while most other planets wouldn't give them a time of day, the ships actually still worked. That was one of the best things about Corellian space technology; it was built to last, and with their innovations in modular technology, it was so easy for them to augment or upgrade the ship while making sure the new technology didn't flash-fry the older hardware.

Other pilots like Anakin or Shanna also kept their old ships here. Although Anakin had long since sold his old Jedi star-fighter off and had used the money to both bank what money he had gotten from the sale and to buy a reasonable apartment for himself in case his hopes to get a proper and more long-term position in CEC didn't happen then he would have been able to begin his own business, he had a number of Corellian ships here as well, only he was focused on one ship.

A Corellian built YT-1300 freighter.

Anakin had seen the ship only in passing, but he knew the ship was really popular with new pilots because the CEC had made offers to various pilots who had their own ships already, but when they took one flight on the ships offered they immediately snapped the designs up, and it wasn't hard for Anakin to see and understand why.

While CEC's methods had been cagey, they had worked. The challenge offered had told pilots, old and new, the YT1300 had been more than they were expecting.

In his own case, Anakin loved the thrill this ship gave off as it travelled through space and hyperspace after he had taken it around the galaxy for a few spins. Say what you wanted about Nabooan design, or the military driven hardware of the Kuat shipyards, the Corellians knew what they were doing. Yeah, while the Naboo ships that he had seen had been pretty impressive, they were too flashy in his mind now, and no he wasn't being biased after what had happened with Padme.

While the Corellians' aesthetic sense was in question, their common sense wasn't.

The moment he had been through the simulator to see how it had differed, Anakin was immediately hooked. As a natural adrenaline junkie, he had been hooked as a child when he had ridden the first of a long line of podracers on Tatooine, now he was a test pilot for the Corellian Engineering Corporation, he was hooked on the YT1300 model freighter, and he didn't care if pilots outside the system derided the ship on its appearance. To Anakin, it was the most beautiful thing he had ever known.

As Anakin walked into the hanger and up the entrance ramp, he jumped into the engineering pit and he began to work on the hyperdrive and the other propulsion systems. As he settled into his routine, Anakin happily worked on the hyperdrive, though he was already planning on augmenting the drive with a different model to make it go 0.5 past light-speed to make the ship infinitely more faster than the average starship. This was the greatest thing about Corellian design; you could work on the ship to your heart's content, and you were allowed to do it as well.

All in all, Anakin was happy.

* * *

His happiness died when he saw the Holonet news a few days later. He had been too busy with his work to properly care about the war, so he was a little bit behind on current events. But when he switched on the Holonet to see what was going on after he had spent his free time working on the YT1300, he was expecting to see anything but what he saw.

Anakin couldn't believe it.

Palpatine was there, in holographic form, his appearance looking scarred and wrinkled while he wore a set of odd looking robes, talking about how the Jedi Council had tried to arrest him. What? Anakin could not believe what he was listening too, what he was hearing… but what surprised him, even more, was how the man whom he had believed to be his friend was saying the Jedi who were being killed in their entirety for their betrayal, it made little sense to Anakin at first because he had never once pictured Palpatine to be the vindictive type. He would have expected something a bit more peaceful than a purge.

What made him swallow the most was the fact he couldn't feel any of their deaths, so he had no way of knowing just how many Jedi had been slaughtered by the Clone troopers already.

"Oh, gods," he thought to himself when he saw the way the holocamera image showed the almost slit-like pupil of Palpatine's eyes.

There was nothing natural about those eyes, and then he realised the truth. Obi-Wan had told him about how Count Dooku himself had claimed there was a Sith Lord on the senate, controlling everything. Dooku had just been a bit too literal about it.

Palpatine was the Sith Lord.

The realisation that the man whom he had thought was a friend wasn't but was trying to use him made him feel sick. Now he knew what Palpatine had been trying to do to him, he had been trying to groom him to become a Sith Lord himself. What made it worse was the Sith Master himself had been hiding in plain sight for so long, yet no-one had actually seen it. Not even him. The sheer skill of the Sith when it came to hiding really surprised Anakin, and he couldn't help but wonder if the Sith Lord had actually been laughing his head off as he had basically pranked the Jedi Council, though what had happened was no laughing matter.

"_The attempt on my life," _the Sith Lord was saying on the Holonet while he looked as solemn as he could, "_has left me scarred, and deformed. But I assure you, my resolve has never been stronger."_

As he listened to the way the rest of the Senate applauded what Palpatine was saying, Anakin had to admit the Sith Master was good; unlike the Sith Lords of the past, this one was using different tactics instead of simply seizing power for himself in an aggressive manner. When he listened to Palpatine as he highlighted his plans for a new Galactic Empire, Anakin felt even sicker. If you needed any more proof Palpatine was a Sith then this was it.

Anakin switched off the Holonet as the sound of the applause reached his ears, and his mind raced as he tried to think what he was going to do. He had no doubt in his head Palpatine had a new apprentice, someone stronger and younger than Dooku, someone who had helped in the destruction of the Jedi Order. But what would Palpatine be doing about him? Palpatine may have dismissed him when he had gone to him to let him know what had happened, but would the Sith Master try to have him killed?

Anakin had no idea. He would just have to wait and see what the Sith Master had in mind, but as he looked around the corridor of his ship, Anakin knew he would need to keep this ship nice and ready for him.

He had a feeling that perhaps he should go into hiding.

* * *

More to come.


End file.
